monastery san jerónimo

A short distance from the village, in the valley of the river Tormes, founded Alfonso VII in the twelfth century the Monastery of San Leonardo for the monks Premostratenses, who after leaving it in the fifteenth century (1447) at the behest of D. Gutierre Álvarez de Toledo, Archbishop of Toledo and Lord of the town of Alba de Tormes, he passed to the order of the Jerónimos.

The monastery was acquired by private individuals in the process of confiscation of the 19th century until 1962 when the religious community of the Congregation of the Heart of Jesus (PP. Reparadores) was installed. After a magnificent restoration it was transformed into a seminary and today houses the Prehistory Museum of Father Ignacio María Belda. The remains of the ancient monastic complex were declared a historic-artistic monument in 1931.

Today it is also a Secondary Education Center as a Minor Seminary.

The distribution of the constructions doesn't correspond to the norm followed during the Middle Ages in most of the monasteries: the cloister is displaced towards the East and the dependencies are advanced to the head of the church, possibly by sticking to the works of the Premostratenses. The gothic church, erected in 1472 by D. García Álvarez de Toledo, consists of a single nave, divided into four regular sections with chapels between the buttresses, and a main chapel closed by three panels forming a polygonal apse. On the outside it has a severe appearance except on the front of the gable.

Linked to the House of Alba in charge of donations and alms acting as protector of the same since in 1430 D, Gutierre ceded the monastery to the Order of the Jerónimos obtaining by papal bull the transfer of the Premostratenses that occupied it to Ciudad Rodrigo. From that moment it would become another focus of light and culture for the town, residing in it characters of great importance to history as Hernando de Talavera or Fray Juan de Ortega.

In the Main Chapel were buried D. Gutierre, Dña. María de Pimentel and her husband the II Duke D. Fadrique Álvarez de Toledo. The bishop's remains were moved to the church of Santiago due to the destruction suffered by the monastery because of the french soldiers during the War of Independence.